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I like the colour blue it seems. Since I’ve been playing around with paints for the last several months – it seems blue is my favourite. Blues all mixed together, maybe even a bit of purple.

“How do I draw water?” I asked A.T. this morning.

I say this morning because there was no work to be had, except for an hour this morning to help intake 20 students into the downtown school. Rode my bicycle downtown, interviewed (including a really interesting young woman from France who has been accepted into the London School of Economics), and returned. Schlepped about, vaguely exhausted from a night of insomnia, capped off by some young folks screaming all around at 4:30 am. My shouted out, “shut up!” from my window did not work. Must get ear plugs again. Decided it was better not to nap.

A.T. and I drew what was said to be water. I didn’t think mine looked like water. But, alas, water. The ocean, Kitsilano Pool, lakes, Musee D’Orsay lights shimmering off of the water in a cool picture I cut out and put on black matte (thanks A.T. for the matte paper).

I have ideas and pictures for collages floating around in my brain.

My brain. I was sidelined this weekend somewhat by rather epic pain in the shoulder/back I think from a fall I had last week where my weak ankle twisted and I violently fell to the ground. Boom on the ground. Time slowed down. Boom there on the ground at the corner of Robson and Burrard. A few days later the pain came and it is an odd injury – breathing, coughing, sneezing, moving – pain. Ow. I was also sidelined by my own brain really – sloppy, floppy, overfocused on myself, rather deadly. People need people, says A.T. Yes, I say, and indeed I do. I get my energy from them and it can shake me from my brain. I didn’t do enough with people this weekend – except for an emergency massage for the injury with a new to me therapist. I’d seen a therapist in the same practice before when I had a job with benefits but he is now apparently in Nova Scotia. The new fellow was good but alas, no relief. I also spent a few minutes with T. because my massage was right near the hospital where she had to go for work. It was a nice day so we plopped outside the side door. A whole lot of interesting folks come out that side door.

“I’m in chronic pain,” I told her, pretty much over and over.

“You don’t say,” she said. T. has migraines and all sorts of chronic pain.

“It’s like a migraine in my shoulder and back,” I insisted.

“Okay,” she said, “I don’t have my painkillers with me or I could give you one,” she offered.

On Sunday, I popped into across the street R. who has the best view from her house’s balcony of the ocean anywhere ever.

The crows kept coming because she feeds them and loves them and calls them in the morning.

“Somebody is giving them peanuts,” she tells me, “Because they keep dropping the shells here.”

I used to think her crow thing was creepy, now I find it comforting to hear her banging on her balcony in the mornings and evenings, calling them for food.

She also calls her cat, J. every morning. Comforting sounds for me.

She gave me some epsom salts. “Enough for two baths,” she said. “Just don’t slip when you get out of the tub.”

She also wanted me to watch a new reality show called, The Briefcase, where two broke couples are given $100,000 and have to decide if they will give it all to the other couple whose house they root through, or not.

“That is surreal,” I said.

R., who takes in street kids and raises them, who fought for civil rights in the 60s in the deep south of the U.S. and whose heart and strong personality exist hugely, loves the reality shows. Undercover Boss is another favourite we have watched together.

“This feels more exploitative than even I can handle,” I would tell her as we watched some big boss giving a profusely thankful worker a toaster or something.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

There is no room in my tiny abode for my stuff or for all of the art I want to put up and collage and worship these days.

I’m not getting much work this week which is tricky because the summer is supposed to be the (only) busy time in my field of work. I never know from week to week. I do know that playing by myself is getting harder and harder. My pals are busy or away – and I spend a whole lot of time Netflixing in my bedroom.

No need for violins playing only for me. I see the luck that I was born into and exist in in this life. But still, hard. After so much time alone it takes me several minutes or hours or something to get used to being amongst the living again.

I would like to sing a new song.

This Sunday it seems there is going to be an art fair on Main Street and I googled some of the artists and holy cow amazing.

I notice flowers more – their vast array of colours and trees holy cow at time of year are amazing. I owe this to A.T. pretty much who slowly opened up this kind of creativity to me. And still I fight her compassion and her kindness.

I both cycled and swam today – despite the injury – so that has got to be good somewhere at some point. It was cool and raining so the pool was pretty free of a lot of people but still, many lappers were lapping.

Loneliness is hard almost always. I’m figuring out that some that I know also suffer with this – but more silently than I do or in a different way.

Maudlin, alas I am being a bit of that.

It’s apparent a visit to some North Shore libraries is in order.

Thanks for reading, wee fanbase, this was a bit more scrambled than usual. I’m going to my writers’ group tonight where I hope my brain adapts a bit quickly.

“If you slow down your painting, it might change,” noted A.T.

Interesting. Also learned that one should not over water one’s paintbrush.

Oh and hourly – I get paid hourly when I do teach. Not enough of that hourly to go around it seems.